Rings
by Eike
Summary: Spoilers for Kratos' past. Kratos watches a fight between his two friends. Just a broken moment, a small crack of the rift that will someday form between them.


**Rings**

_by Eike_

The slap echoed, somehow. The room was small, stuffy, and the sound reverberated in his ears until it was the only thing he could hear. His intellect told him that it was impossible, as the sound had no way of reflecting back to him. It still rang inside him, all the way through his body. Maybe it would shatter his bones, and he would finally be able to die --

Abruptly it was gone. It was just himself, Yuan, and Mithos in the room; as it had been just a minute ago, as it had been a day, a month, a year, a century ago. But something had changed. He had been drowned in the change, overwhelmed by its waves that he couldn't quite comprehend exactly what he was swimming in.

Yuan appeared confused as well. Mithos, however, had a sense of purpose in his eyes. Anger. Righteous anger; something that hadn't been there for quite some time. An anger that somehow justified slapping his closest friend -one of his few supporters- across the face.

"How dare you."

It wasn't just anger. It was hurt. Had Mithos shown any emotion other than anger and cold distance in the past decades, Kratos might have believed his friend -- could he still call him that? -- to be near tears.

"Mithos, what's wrong with you?" Yuan sounded cautious. Disconcerted, but not completely unaware of the problem. Kratos considered leaving the room and letting them sort things out, but Mithos had called him there specifically.

So, a public castigation for Yuan? At least, as public as it could get living on a planet filled with lifeless beings. Mock humans, Yuan had labeled them. Mithos had yelled then. Not humans. Half-elves. Kratos had almost responded with "It's all the same," but had known that Mithos wouldn't agree.

Mithos pulled something out of his pocket. Small, it fit inside his fist, and Kratos couldn't see what it was from his angle. Yuan saw, though, and his eyes widened -- fear or surprise, Kratos couldn't be sure. Perhaps a bit of both.

"Where did you get that!" Yuan demanded. His eyes darted downwards, from Mithos' hand to his own. Kratos decided that it was more fear now. He took a step forward to get a better angle. It provided him full view of the item in question: a small golden ring. He slowly let his gaze wander over to Yuan's hand, wearing a similar ring. He had never thought much of it before now; it was just jewelry that the other man chose to wear, much like the earrings.

Mithos stepped back and hid the ring again, his scowl deepening. "I was looking through Martel's things. You know, while actually working on a way to revive her." Kratos winced a bit at the implied meaning: _while you two do nothing to aid me._

Yuan ignored the implication, focusing instead on the ring. "You have no right to even touch that. She wouldn't want you to cover it in your hate."

The room seemed much too small then. Mithos let his wings expand, those horrible, artificial creations -_look, we're angels now; they'll worship the ground we walk on!_- that made the boy leave his inferiority complex behind. _Only to replace it with a superiority complex_, his mind argued. The complexes were enough to fill the room and make breathing hard for anybody who stepped foot in it. But then, simply breathing was hard around Mithos, who suffered from so many complexes that anything could be taken the wrong way.

Something as small as a pair of matching rings.

"No right? How DARE you say that I have no right! She was my sister! And you, _you_ betrayed my trust in you!" Mithos' wings quivered. The light shining through the single window ran through the iridescent wings, creating a moving rainbow effect on the floor.

Yuan was not the kind of person to let himself be intimidated. He spread his own wings, and the room shrunk even further, leaving Kratos feeling like he was being pushed out. He stepped backwards towards the wall, fumbling until he found the doorknob.

"Kratos, stay. I want you to know what this DOG was doing behind my back," Mithos barked. Kratos let his hands fall to his sides. The door wasn't locked. If things got worse, he could always leave. He _would_ leave.

Yuan was floating higher than Mithos now, so that his wings almost touched the ceiling. Any fear he had had was replaced by open disgust. "You," Yuan pointed at Mithos, "are the reason that we kept it a secret. Your possessiveness and stubbornness and general lack of rational thinking. We loved each other."

Mithos took an angry breath before swooping in to kick Yuan into the wall. "Love? I read the diaries, the love-letters. You perverted her! You used her for your own sick pleasures. And now what? You don't even care about her anymore. You're willing to let her rot on some planet that doesn't even remember her name!"

He didn't understand. Mithos never understood. When it came to Martel, he was so protective, so driven. Her death had driven him to these immoral actions. A death that Kratos felt he could have prevented. Immorality that he was almost certain he could have prevented through proper guidance. He was only glad he would never have children, as he had no skill in raising them, it seemed. If nothing else, Mithos had taught him that.

Yuan recovered from the attack quickly, choosing to stay at a distance though. Good thinking, but he needed to use that tactical skill when speaking as well.

"It's you and your damned sister complex again! Why can't you get it through your head that she was your blood relation? She didn't love you the way you loved her! You're the one who wanted to pervert her. And I was still your friend despite loving your sister. She didn't steal me from you either. Or is it our happiness that you're jealous of? Can't stand the thought that we made the best of our time together while you were miserable and moped every step of the journey?"

It's all of it, Kratos wanted to reply. Mithos loves you as much as he loves Martel, he wanted to say. But he wondered if Mithos would have started a campaign to revive Yuan. No -- Martel would have prevented that. Martel would not have wanted to see her lover in any other form.

"Oh, and by the way: Martel wouldn't want to be revived! She's happier off dead than living in your sick and twisted version of the world!"

That was the end of the storm. Yuan darted out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The spell that Mithos had started to cast was discarded, as were the pretty, wonderful, horrible wings. He was just a boy again, slumped on the floor. Tears were streaming down his face. Kratos strode over to him and gently put his arms around his ward. The embrace was returned, a soft sniffle leading into louder sobs.

"Kratos," Mithos mumbled into his shoulder, "promise me you won't leave me. Not like Martel, not like Yuan, not like anyone."

Kratos quickly whispered his promises. He had nowhere else to go, no other people to join with. He was certain that he couldn't be killed anymore either, there was nobody on either world who possessed the skill to match him. It was an easy promise to make. He would keep it for the rest of eternity.

Kratos wished he had a ring of his own.

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It's been a while since I've played the game, but after reading some fanfic on I was inspired. I have no idea if Mithos was actually aware of Yuan and Martel's relationship; I can only assume he would have discovered it eventually. And, uh, if you couldn't tell, this is set after the whole "revive martel" plan was set into motion, but before Kratos meets Anna. 

Comments and criticism are greatly appreciated. You can also e-mail me any comments you might have at yhibikiathotmaildotcom.


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